I hear this, but also it works fine in Safari... and even less bad in Chrome on a MBP. Not an expert, but that makes me think there's something the Firefox folks can do to improve this issue. If they wanted to.
It's not like 2x, it's like 40x more power used. This makes the MBP super heat. Thing was never cool to start, but I suspect it's getting hot enough to shorten the battery life. It's really hot. Happens on every MBP 16" I've tested it on.
Grab 2-3 friends, fire up Zoom, Google Meets, or stream something on Twitch (or whatever service you want). And you'll hear the fans kick in, and the machine's temp will rapidly rise. Toggle open the power inspector, or just watch as 1-2% of the battery life drains per minute.
Well, it's much easier for Apple to get the optimizations on their hardware, drivers, OS, and web browser to all line up. There are some benefits of the cathedral.
However, I agree with others that there may be an actual bug going on. There are definitely listings in Bugzilla for WebRTC bugs[0], the oldest of which is 7 years old.
I'm curious if you're just seeing high battery usage, or is there high CPU as well?
CPU goes up some, but not a ton. Like it's weird. It really just super heats my computer, fans go to max RPM, and burns battery like there's no tomorrow... but I don't see CPU usage off the charts -- it's using CPU more than Safari or Chrome would, but doesn't seem like CPU is maxed. It's like it just gives the instructions, "Heat up!" I don't know, like just grab a MBP and try a call. Happens on all of them I've tried it on. 2019 MBP 16" is my daily computer, and the one I have the most issues with. I had a 2017 (Maybe 2016? First model with butterfly switches) and it happened there too. Happens on the 13" MBP I got form work. Happens on my girlfriends MBP 13" with the M1 chip, but it's not nearly as much of an issue as the Intel Macs.
Well, if the fans are spinning, it heats up, power is drained, and the CPU usage is fine... it's gotta be the GPU. There's only so many things in the system that can use power and generate heat, after all.
I don't know enough about MBPs of that age, but I'd guess they have discrete GPUs and it's those are running. I wonder if you'd be better off disabling GPU optimizations, or if there's a codec issue of some kind.
It's not like 2x, it's like 40x more power used. This makes the MBP super heat. Thing was never cool to start, but I suspect it's getting hot enough to shorten the battery life. It's really hot. Happens on every MBP 16" I've tested it on.
Grab 2-3 friends, fire up Zoom, Google Meets, or stream something on Twitch (or whatever service you want). And you'll hear the fans kick in, and the machine's temp will rapidly rise. Toggle open the power inspector, or just watch as 1-2% of the battery life drains per minute.